Reflections by award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett, author of many books about the sea

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Saturday, April 4, 2009

Art inspires debate

Versions of Picasso's Guernica appeared on walls in Belfast during The Troubles amongst all the guerrilla art. Now the tapestry version of the painting is the centrepiece of a new exhibition in London's Whitechapel Art Gallery, more than sixty years after the original hung there for a fortnight to raise money for and awareness of the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War.

The tapestry was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller and normally hangs in the UN, where it was covered up during Colin Powell's speech in 2003 making the case for war in Iraq. In the newly revamped Whitechapel the tapestry presides over a UN style debating table, free to anyone who wishes to hire the room for discussion. The first debate there was about the role of art in protest.